Middle East

John has written about how President Obama’s campaign team is working to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s upcoming elections. To make matters worse, the anti-Netanyahu campaign is benefiting from U.S. taxpayer money. As John noted, the organization “One Voice” wants to help take down Netanyahu’s party in the March 2015 Knesset elections that will ultimately determine the next Israeli Prime Minister. “One Voice” claims to be non-partisan, but it is »

HarperCollins has produced at atlas for use in English-speaking schools in the Middle East that features a conspicuous omission. There’s Gaza, and there’s the West Bank. Jordan and Lebanon are accounted for. But…where is Israel? I naively would have expected HarperCollins to say we weren’t looking hard enough, or attribute the omission to a lack of space. But no: Collins Bartholomew, the subsidiary of HarperCollins that specialises in maps, told »

There’s a mountain of economic research that suggests predatory pricing, the alleged sin of Standard Oil way back in the Rockefeller “robber baron” days more than a century ago, really doesn’t work, as the predator won’t recoup monopoly gains to make up the loss of profit during the period of predation—the more so the longer the period of price cutting takes. The Saudis likely know this, which suggests their decision »

News is coming over the wires right now that Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie, held hostage in Yemen by al-Qaeda terrorists, were killed during an attempted rescue raid by American special forces yesterday. Here’s some of the BBC account up in just the last few minutes: UK-born US journalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie have been killed by al-Qaeda militants in Yemen during a failed »

Maybe this needs to be filed under the “even a stopped clock is right twice a day” department, but Tom Friedman actually wrote an interesting and probative column a couple days ago about what’s going on with the falling price of oil, and I’m still picking myself up off the floor in amazement. Here are the three key paragraphs: Is it just my imagination or is there a global oil »

Just about the entire Democratic Party is lining up to dump on Obama at the moment, including former President Jimmy Carter, who is obviously relieved that he’s no longer everyone’s go-to model for the worst president in modern memory. But he’s taking no chances. So he said recently about Obama’s Middle East policy: First of all we waited too long. We let the Islamic State build up money, capability, and »

In Cairo, a one-day “donor conference” for Gaza has just wrapped up. Various nations pledged $5.4 billion to reconstruct Gaza and help cement Hamas’s cruel and corrupt rule. That was more than the $4 billion that Mahmoud Abbas asked for, so it was a good day’s work for the terrorists. Qatar, which may have replaced Saudi Arabia as the best argument for fracking, pledged $1 billion to lead all donors. »

Mudran Zahran is a Palestinian writer and academic from Jordan who now resides in the UK as a political refugee. In the aftermath of the latest war between Israel and Hamas, he interviewed Gazans to find out what they had to say about the conflict. His report appears on the website of the Gatestone Institute. According to Zahran, Gazans told him of atrocities and war crimes committed by Hamas. Their »

Hamas claims that it won a famous victory over Israel in the recent war in Gaza. But what are the fruits of that “victory”? According to the U.N., as reported in the Washington Post, they are: (1) approximately 108,000 residents of Gaza left homeless, (2) more than 60,000 displaced residents living at schools run by the U.N., and (3) almost half a million residents without access to municipal water. Even »

So now President Obama wants to organize a coalition to take on ISIS, the group whose rise he ignored on the theory that it was the terrorist “jayvee.” Arab states — notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan — and Turkey are to be key members of the coalition. Obama assigns these states primary responsibility for mobilizing Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. Presumably, Obama »

President Obama has improved upon his statement of the American objective regarding ISIS. He now says that he intends to “degrade and destroy” this barbaric outfit, not merely to convert it into a “manageable problem.” However, Obama has not retracted, or even “walked back,” his statement about how to deal with ISIS. He has consistently taken the position that “what we’ve got to do is make sure that we are »

Hamas has once again precipitated mass destruction, almost entirely of its own structures and people, and has achieved nothing concrete unless you count a few more miles of fishing rights. The upshot? Hamas’ popularity has surged, at least according to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The survey finds that 61 percent of Arab residents of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza would pick Hamas leader Ismail »

To superficial observers of the Middle East, the latest round of fighting in Gaza looks like a replay of previous rounds. Once again, it seems, Israel pounded Hamas but didn’t crush it. But there was something different this time around. This time, Hamas was far more isolated diplomatically. Egypt, the Saudis, and the Palestinian Authority all showed “no sympathy” for Hamas (as President Obama would say). Indeed, unlike President Obama »

True to its word for once, Hamas today resumed rocket attacks on Israel as soon as the cease fire was scheduled to expire. It was a smart play by the terrorist outfit. One senses that Hamas’ stranglehold on Gaza depends on securing Israel’s agreement to remove its blockade. Without this, Hamas has nothing to show for the devastation brought on by its latest war. In this sense, Hamas has little »

Hamas has announced its position regarding a permanent cease fire with Israel: the Israelis must meet all of Hamas’ demands: [Hamas spokesman] Mushir al-Masri advised tens of thousands of Israelis who left their homes in the South not to return unless Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu complied with all the demands of Hamas and other groups. . . . The Hamas spokesman claimed that Israel has only one choice: to comply »

Israel has agreed to extend a ceasefire that ended a month of fighting in Gaza beyond its Friday expiration date, the Jerusalem Post reports. However, Hamas says it will resume fighting unless significant progress is made in negotiations. For Hamas, significant progress means significant concessions on its demands for money, an end to Israel’s blockade, and access for Gaza’s Palestinians into Israel. If the past is any guide, Hamas would »

The cease fire in Gaza appears to be holding and Israel has pulled back, its military campaign apparently over. Now comes the hard part — the diplomatic war. As Herb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post observes, Israel has almost always done far better on the battlefield than in the diplomatic arena that follows its wars. This is likely to be the case once again. Israel appears to have accomplished militarily »